In dense urban settings, mobile device users can experience sub-optimal performance due to short base station association times and incorrect base station association. This is due, in part, to the fact that signal strength-based hand-off techniques are not designed for dense urban settings with heavily overlapping base station coverage areas, nor are such hand-off techniques designed for high volume mobile device users. Hand-off strategies implemented by network operators that are only based on signal strength result in frequent hand-offs in dense urban settings, as well as in users being connected to a sub-optimal base station due to hand-off latency.
Accordingly, a need exists for a data-driven hand-off technique that simultaneously reduces the number of hand-offs and increases the average signal strength experienced by the mobile user.